DC Nation

I've only recently found out about this block today 'cause of Lauren Faust's deviantart journal, but...

They're bringing back Amethyst Princess Of Gemworld. That just made my very depressing day really happy.

I'm more of a Marvel person, but I'm really psyched for this block.

Some news about DC Nation and SBFF from Lauren Faust's blog.

Also, Lauren's Wonder Girl and Batgirl are revealed to be Donna (if the hair is anything to go by) and... Barbra. Again.

Bah! And I had such high hopes! I thought... Maybe Lauren will be different and use Cass or Steph... Oh well, sounds like the shorts will be a lot of fun anyways. Supergirl, Batgirl, and Wondergirl hijacking the Invisible Jet. That can only end in comedy.

Cass and Steph need introductions to the general public such brief segments just can't provide. They need to be introduced in longer stories to become better known by non-hardcore comic audiences before being used that way.

Part of the reason they're doing these shorts is so they can promote the lesser known characters, they say so in the second paragraph of that article. Of course, it sounds like SBFF is leaning more on comedy... but Cass would be the perfect Silent Snarker! Gah!

edited 20th Feb '12 8:34:24 PM by Calnos

Maybe in five or fifteen minutes shorts (that's the deal with Plastic Man, for instance, right?) where at least an actual brief story can be told, but no proper introduction can be had in a one minute format. Supergirl's already well known, and Wonder Girl... well, even in the comics, she originally just kinda appeared out of nowhere.

edited 20th Feb '12 8:51:18 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

Those Aardman shorts are... interesting.

The Teen Titans short was kind of nice. There's pretty much no doubt Control Freak was basically Film Freak Meets Trekkie Stereotype, right?

I usually avoid things with names like Super Best Friends Forever as a precaution, but I hear nothing but good things about Lauren Faust so I figure it's definitely worth a look.

edited 20th Feb '12 9:39:19 PM by KnownUnknown

Green Latern airs at the same time as Friendship Is Magic.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-

Actually, Friendship is Magic now airs at 1:00 PM. You can have your superheroes and your ponies separately in the same day.

WHOO!

Or you can combine them in your own fanfic. (Where would the Ponies wear their rings?)

You know, this whole "animated anthology to promote our characters" idea is so- obvious I'm surprised it wasn't tried by DC before. (Not since the 70s anyway.)

As for Batgirl, I'm a strong believer in each character having his/her unique identity. I don't want multiple Batgirls, I want Oracle, Spoiler and Black Bat.

edited 21st Feb '12 4:50:03 AM by Sijo

More. Babs-girl. WHY ALWAYS FRICKEN BABS-GIRL? She's gonna stick her stupid red head in Young Justice, if that leaked toy is any indication, now in this. AND Katanna is gonna be in Beware the Batman, cause God forbid we introduce the Asian Batgirl! Gail Simone would just throw the biggest tantrum in the world if Barbara Sue wasn't the only Batgirl to ever be prominent anywhere ever! Atleast we've seen other Robins, and most people have different interpretations of Dick, but we've only ever seen fricken Babs and she only has ONE peronality: "I'm smart, but also athletic and I can do everything the boys can!" God forbid she, you know, prove that by being anything other than one big sue. Yeah, the Killing Joke has some Unfortunate Implications concerning her crippling, but she was a hell of a lot more interesting as a super-genius information broker for the entire DCU instead of a mary sue template for 2 better heroines after her.

But on the plus side, atleast she isn't being written by Simone in this, so the chance of her getting universal praise and having confusing poorly written thought boxes that make it sound like she worships Gotham like a church is much less likely.

I thought Barbara's return as Batgirl was editorially mandated by DC. I don't think it was Gail's idea, especially since another author already had tried to do it years ago with the "Oracle: The Cure" mini, but IIRC it was changed at the last minute.

Steph should be introduced as Spoiler (her own identity, you know! The one she created herself, instead of following anyone else's cue!) before being made a Batgirl.

As for Cassandra, her origin is very difficult to portray properly in any animation children are supposed to watch, since it involves copious amounts of child abuse.

edited 21st Feb '12 5:31:35 AM by NapoleonDeCheese

True, but Gails crappy writing on the book isn't helping me accept Babs-Girl anymore than replacing Steph did. I understand that it would be hard to pull off the whole Cass story with child abuse and murder and all that jazz, but she's an incredibly interesting character and there is a shortage of prominent Asian characters in superhero fiction, especially animation. The only prominent Asian member of a superhero cartoon I can think of recently is Artemis, and how many of you didn't realize she was Asian till her stereotypically accented mother appeared?

Keep in mind, I am more of a Steph fan than a Cass fan.

Legacy characters getting into adaptations always seems like such a hassle. Maybe another reason might have to do with copyright issues. I'm not very knowledgeable on the subject, but I would imagine the company having a stronger legal "hold" over the originals.

But then of course we have Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle as an exception, but the most likely reason for that is probably because Blue Beetle wasn't well known to begin with. DC made a big push for Jaime, and now he's reached the "marketable" level.

And that's really the issue here, how marketable a character can be, which may or may not tie into popularity. Fact of the matter is, Barbara has a lot more marketability thanks to her having been Batgirl for so long, even many kids were first introduced to Cass or Steph Batgirl. I admit, it's sad but true. DC would rather stick with what they know is popular than try to make a fan favorite mainstream. I'd say, on average, DC has a lot fewer marketable characters than Marvel. or rather, Marvel has been doing a much better job of making their own characters more mainstream, like Iron Man for instance.

These days, it's seems very hard for any new comic character to break into the mainstream. I keep hoping Kid Devil makes it into a cartoon because of his ties to Miss Martian and Blue Beetle.

I happen to like Barbara Gordon, even if I like her more as Oracle and Cassandra more as Batgirl. I accept that she's iconic and a vibrant character in her own right, and to many she is Batgirl, the way many think that Dick Grayson is Robin (even though he isn't anymore).

I really want to see Cassandra Cain appear in something eventually, but I'm not about to throw a fit because Barb - a character I like, if not as much in that role, is getting some exposure instead.

I will always see Steph as Spoiler, so I don't really care if she doesn't appear as Batgirl.

I actually doubt they're going to go into whoever might be under Batgirl's mask in animated interstitials. Still, from what I've seen, it looks like Barbara. As harsh as it may sound, I'd advise getting used to it; Barbara was Batgirl for something like 20 years, which more than trumps anyone else who's worn the suit. Cassandra and Stephanie, in the greater scheme of things, were barely Batgirl at all. The makers of animated series' are not necessarily comics fans (I remember that the guy principally behind CN's Teen Titans came right out and said that he wasn't), so they're much more likely to use the most iconic version of a character when doing an animated show. The most you're ever likely to get is something like Tim Drake in Batman TAS, where he's obviously Jason Todd but he's named Tim Drake.

I personally wouldn't be surprised if sometime in the future we don't see Dick Grayson as Robin again. These things always seem to ultimately return to their original forms, eventually.

Except people actually do different things with Dicks character. With Babs-Girl it's always "I'm so smart-yet-athelitic and able to do things boys can do too!". It's a tired, outdated idea for a female character and Simones current run on the book (where she has the same personality I described plus "I used to be paralyzed!" angst) where everyone praises her for how super duper awesome she is doesn't help.

I've never liked Babs-Girl, even before getting into comics and finding out that there were 2 waaaaaaaaaaaaay better Batgirls after her while she became twice as interesting in a wheelchair on a computer than she ever was in a bat suit. I'm just really sick of her, and it feels like DC just want to shove her down our throats.

I don't think they want to "shove her down our throats" per se; I think they feel that the majority of their market prefers her (and from what I've read, that appears to be so), or, in a lot of cases, is unaware that there was ever another Batgirl at all. They're not doing it to piss you off.

I'll agree with you on the characterization bit, but then I've never really been a big Batgirl fan. She always felt to me exactly like what she was, a character shoe-horned in for the sake of providing a recurring female character (she was created at the request of the producers of the 60's era Batman tv show). She never seemed to have a terribly compelling reason to be there; I personally liked her much better as Oracle.

Yeah, I'm sure this isn't a case of "shoving Babs!Bat down our throats" and just a matter of Babs being the iconic Batgirl. That, and Lauren Faust strikes me as someone who's more old-school, heck her Batgirl design is even using the 60's-style purple outfit! I for one am not going to berate her for being old-school.

I just want to see Cass in something, ya know? Being an armor vendor doesn't count.

So Lauren Faust interview has a little more info on SBFF. Apparently there will be 5 episodes, each a minute and 15 seconds. Supergirl is suffering from "My cousin is more popular than me" syndrome and Batgirl is a geek. Nothing on Wonder Girl.

Is that enough info to make a page? Or wait until trailer and/or first episode airs?

Geek Batgirl reminds me a bit of The New Batman Adventures. Batgirl was one of the few things I liked about The New Batman Adventures (y'know, without the shudder-worthy "affair with Bruce" thing).

I totally forgot they were going to be shorts...

edited 22nd Feb '12 9:17:07 AM by KnownUnknown

... They aren't even trying, are they?

Its one of the more hyped up things about DC Nation. Seriously, I haven't seen any articles about Green Lantern The Animated Series since the pilot debuted a few months ago.

I'm surprised there's only going to be 5 episodes. Lauren did say there's a chance for it to be expanded if its popular enough, but I was expecting a little more... maybe all the shorts series are 5 episodes and they're trying to spread them out a bit?

Seriously, that's barely above the lenght of a single Looney Tune. Did their budget come in a matchbox, or what? It feels like a joke.

^^^ They are in-between shorts. They can't be that long.

Why don't you actually observe the show and see for it's quality before you decide whether or not "they" didn't care, eh?

^ Looney Tunes played in theaters during filmreels and/or before films. These are designed play between individual shows. They quite literally cannot play at the same length. So presumably they instead wrote them around being effective for their length.

I've seen enough animation to know that short length productions can be just as good as full length ones.